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August 25, 2005

More "Lazy Manny" Garbage

The Dirt Dogs headline is pretty blunt: Manny Being Lazy -- complete with a NESN screen shot, scolding comments from Jerry Remy and Sean McAdam, and a Manny Gaffe Gallery.

It seems like BDD hauls out the home-to-first stopwatch only when Manny is running runs down the line. Every single Red Sox player -- indeed, every single major league player from the beginning of time -- does not sprint to first on every single ground ball. If you've watched even a few innings of baseball ever, you would know this is true.

Has BDD seen Kevin Millar going from home to first over the past few weeks? He's been running so slow -- slower even than his cement shoes usually take him -- that he's been making Manny look like Willie Freakin' Wilson. ... Of course, if you spent most of your time looking to take pot shots at Ramirez, well, you would have missed that.

Can any Red Sox fan look at this team and honestly say that Manny Ramirez is the biggest problem? One of the top three problems? Top five? Top ten?

Also: Keith Foulke now says that he will be back September 1 at the earliest. ... Lenny DiNardo, sent back to Pawtucket when trot Nixon was activated, will return when rosters expand to 40 players next month, along with Kevin Youkilis, Manny Delcarmen, Craig Hansen, and possibly Hanley Ramirez and Dustin Pedroia.

The Red Sox were named the Farm of the Year for 2005 by the Minor League News. Five Boston prospects were listed among MLN's Fab50, the most for any team: Jonathan Papelbon (11), Ramirez (16), Kelly Shoppach (20), Anibal Sanchez (37) and Pedroia (45).

Despite 1.2 innings and 34 pitches last night, Bronson Arroyo is still scheduled to start on Saturday. ... The Red Sox and Mets have discussed a deal that would bring Roberto Hernandez to Boston, but the talks have died down because the Mets are still in the wild card chase.

Redsock nails the real issue by asking whether Manny is one of the team's top problems...absolutely not. He's not a negative; he's a big net positive, lousy glove and lousy attitide included. I do think this site's in denial about the degree of these two problems, but ultimately, it is dumb to focus on why one of the strengths of the club isn't even better rather than how the weaknesses of the club can be improved.

This site is not in denial, because we do not know all of the facts. All we get are brief through-the-keyhole snapshots of the players and front office, which are packaged, edited and presented to us by media with myriad agendas of its own.

Ultimately, what side we come down re: Manny (and any other player) likely will say more about ourselves than the actual situation.

There is no such thing as a perfect player. Everyone will find something -- I might choose Trait C, you might focus on Trait Y -- about any player to pick on.

Manny is not the ideal player, but he's one of the greatest hitters of his generation (no one else on the Sox can make that claim), and he's not as bad in the field and on the bases as his reputation suggests.

You have to watch him every day to realize that and none of the national media who fit him years ago for that straightjacket as a flake (and probably not even all of the Boston media) see him every day.